Many in church have been warned against fornication, if sex was mentioned at all. Fornication, we have been told, could jeopardize future conjugality and even salvationSalvation can mean saved from something (deliverance) or for something (redemption). Paul preached that salvation comes through the death of Christ on the cross which redeemed sinners from death and for a grace-filled life. More.
But time has brought necessary change.
In 2021, the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue) retranslated “fornicators” in 1 Corinthians 6:9 to “the sexually immoral.” The change follows the original New Revised Standard Version moving away from “fornication” as a reliable translation of the Greek word porneia in 1989. The NRSVue has gone further, changing some 25 instances of porneia and its cognates from the eldest Pauline letter of 1 Thessalonians to the apocalyptic writing of Revelation.
Scholars know “fornication” misreads a multilayered term.
In Hellenistic times, porneia referred to particular kinds of sexual activity rather than a universal category of sexual wrongdoing. As Kyle Harper argues in “Porneia: The Making of a Christian Sexual Norm (2012),” a “pornos is a gigolo, not a john.” In the hands of the apostleDerived from a Greek word meaning "one who is sent," an apostle is a person who embraces and advocates another person's idea or beliefs. At the beginning of his ministry Jesus called twelve apostles to follow and serve him. Paul became an apostle of Jesus... More PaulThe Apostle Paul, originally known as Saul of Tarsus, was the author of several New Testament letters and the founder of many Christian communities. More, porneia was stretched to encompass a range of illicit sexual practices.
Preachers such as John Chrysostom followed Paul’s lead to wield porneia like a broad paint brush to smear all kinds of sexual expression. This catchall use on the one hand established a false sense of certainty and paradoxically, on the other hand, yielded wooden translations of the richness of the originating Greek term. Christian human sexuality seemed settled. In reality, centuries of interpretation had stretched a specific word to condemn all kinds of sexual expression and what Christians should consider sexually moral or immoral is continually evolving as the Spirit leads.
The consequences in the modern era have been devastating.
Throughout the late twentieth century, large segments of American Christianity organized themselves around sexual purity. Youth ministries urged teenagers to sign abstinence pledges. Purity rings and best-selling books promised that waiting for marriage would ensure future relational and spiritual fulfillment. Sexual desire itself became suspect. Shame and guilt overcame young Christians who became sexually active before marriage. Being LGBTQIA+ was seen as incompatible with Christian teaching and belief. Though notably, even the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, JoshuaThe successor of Moses, Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan. More Harris, has renounced his book in recent years and also given up his Christian faith.
Appeals to “fornication” have confused Christian morals and even made belief untenable.
Porneia does not mean fornication or “sex before marriage.” Chastity is, of course, a longstanding biblical and Christian virtue. Yet advocacy for it concerns releasing worldly desires in anticipation of God’s future, not bluntly resisting sex. Skilled readers of 1 Corinthians 6 should not conclude that consensual sex before marriage is a sin disinheriting someone from the kingdom of GodThe kingdom (reign) of God is a central theme of Jesus' teaching and parables. According to Jesus this reign of God is a present reality and at the same time is yet to come. When Christians pray the Lord's Prayer, they ask that God's kingdom... More. Paul’s warnings against porneia launch a more profound plea to flee wrongdoing, especially sexual exploitation, and to embody the glory of God together not once and for all, but now and into the future.
For Paul, followers of Christ have failed to resolve their disagreements as a community shaped by Christ. They have failed to distinguish their ways of life as particularly evident of Christ. Before he ever addresses porneia, Paul wants his readers to rely upon the reign of God, not human judgment, even to the extent of being wronged rather than committing wrong, to hold each other accountable to the eschatological communion of saints, not just to one another, and to build lives that resemble costly temples of God.
Corinth itself was a bustling Roman city. Founded by Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, it was a commercial center situated between two ports. Wealthy elites controlled much of civic life. Most people were poor. Freed slaves, merchants, laborers, artisans, and migrants crowded the city. The church reflected the surrounding society. Like congregations today, it was diverse, imperfect, argumentative, and struggling to figure out what faithfulness looked like in a rapidly changing world.
Paul writes as a church founder and pastor to people he has not seen for several years. He is not composing a systematic theology of sex. He is helping a fractured community learn how to live together as the body of Christ and distinguish themselves as faithful to God rather than seduced by the world.
His judgment of the “sexually immoral” is not a simple renunciation of sex before marriage.
Before the Corinthians can determine how to live faithfully, they must learn how to distinguish themselves as people of God in every part of their lives, including the most intimate aspects. Being washed, sanctified, and justified in Christ can never be reduced to identifying what is permitted or prohibited. It also does not entail doing whatever the hell you want to. It demands learning how to discern together what the love of God and neighbor requires, from the bedroom to the courtroom, and more.
Discernment matters at every level.
Christian sexual ethics require collective interpretation and memory of what has come before, including the genealogyGenealogy involves the study and tracing of families through the generations—in short, family history. One genealogy in Genesis traces the nations descended from Noah. In the New Testament Matthew traces the ancestry of Jesus back to Abraham, while Jesus' genealogy in the Gospel of Luke... More of porneia, for example, and the implications of more sophisticated knowledge for the present and future application of scriptural wisdomWisdom encompasses the qualities of experience, knowledge, and good judgment. The Old Testament book of Proverbs, which sometimes invokes a Woman as the personification of Wisdom, is a collection of aphorisms and moral teachings. Along with other biblical passages, it teaches, "The fear of the... More.
Communities cannot faithfully navigate disagreement if they mistake inherited interpretations for the only possible reading of Scripture. Nor can they move forward by pretending complex questions have simple answers. The history of porneia reminds us that translation itself is interpretation. Every generation must wrestle anew with how ancient texts speak to contemporary lives and, in this case, contemporary Christian sexual ethics.
The disappearance of “fornication” from 1 Corinthians 6 will not end debates about human sexuality. But it does offer an opportunity. It frees readers from the illusion that one English word can settle every question. And it redirects our attention to Paul’s deeper concern: how communities shaped by graceGrace is the unmerited gift of God's love and acceptance. In Martin Luther's favorite expression from the Apostle Paul, we are saved by grace through faith, which means that God showers grace upon us even though we do not deserve it. More can navigate conflict, embodiment, holiness, and human relationships with wisdom, humility, and love.In that sense, as crucial as shunning porneia or sexual immorality is in 1 Corinthians 6—especially treatment of sex as an economic good rather than a gift from God—as a demonstration of faithfulness to God, the deeper concern is the contentious, church-roiling and ongoing work of figuring out together what faithfulness to God looks like.
